In response to questions regarding the impact of fires and logging on water supply catchments Tim Holding, the Minister for Water, stated on Jon Faine ABC 774 this morning:
HOLDING: …In the case of fires, particularly where those fires are extensive the regrowth can absorb large amounts of water that would otherwise have been drawn into the storage. And in a sense John that is why it’s so important in the years ahead that we move away from relying almost exclusively on water stored in reservoirs to provide our water security. We need to diversify our water sources, that’s one of the reasons why desalination, water recycling and those other projects are so important.
The 1939 fires also burnt portions of the Melbourne water supply catchment and this was salvage logged. Is this the plan now to open up the rest of Upper Yarra Dam catchment for Melbourne’s water supply for salvage logging? What about other water supplies with forested catchments — will they be logged too? Is this where the future timber for pulp mills and woodchips will come from?
Will the impact of fires on the water supply catchments and this policy, especially its origins, be considered by the Royal Commission? Will they have the resources? How will they source expertise without a vested interest or from the “more burns and log lobbies”? It may be all over bar the shouting by the time they publish their findings.
Right now, it is impossible to know which backburns are being used to put out persistent fires and which are being used to burn the remaining bush. Bulldozers are cutting breaks through areas of unburnt bush as you read — though it appears many bulldozed fire breaks in the bush failed last Saturday week. If the reluctance to put out the fire in Wilson’s Promontory, or merely on existing fire breaks, is anything to go by, these backburns could last a couple of months if they we do not have heavy rain.
If the flurry of media demanding that all bush be burnt every seven to 10 years (depending on which lobbyist is speaking) was acted on, we would see the extinction of all hollow dependent species of birds and animals. This can only be raised at a time when so many people’s lives have been affected and rebuttal of even this stupidity will attract derision and scorn from a stressed out community.
Yet Russell Rees, the Chief Fire Officer of Country Fire Authority (on the ABC’s Lateline last night) does not see last Saturday week’s fire that way:
RUSSELL REES: Every bit of fuel in the state of Victoria is dry. And it’s dry because of the environment. It’s not dry because there hasn’t been fuel reduction burning. It’s simply a case of the fuel and the state it’s in.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The authorities point out that with such intense conditions, even grass that’s just a few inches long can be a pathway for fire to jump from property to property.
RUSSELL REES: It’s just exploding. And that’s the environment that we’re in, because of that long run dry period; the combination of the heatwave, the 12 years of drought. Our fuel’s in a very difficult environment and even the light fuels, the fuels that don’t normally dry out are now dry. So, it’s not an argument about fuel reduction burning per se.
The back burning onto last week’s bushfires is showing every sign of going on and on and on — as it did in 2003 and 2007. Surely these fires need to be put out. If standing trees are dangerous, then what about active fire when a hot day arrives?
The Victorian Royal Commission already appears weak. Every backburn that is designed to burn bush for other reasons than directly stopping fire flouts it before it has started — and this could go on for 18 months or more.
Sure it is open-ended, but it is almost designed to avoid looking at possibly the most intense period of fuel reduction and similar fires in Victoria’s history, 2000 — 2007. The independent research capacity of the Royal Commission is yet to be described.
It will take public submissions, but what about the resources available to the public to make those submissions? The submissions from the many dodgy environment-like groups, those operating as fronts for political parties, government departments and various lobbies will be well resourced, no doubt. How does a legal person evaluate this information? What resources will they have to double check everything presented to them?
Going with the most qualified advice too is risky when ‘professorialships’ can be ‘established’ with outside funding to universities and other qualifications awarded as ‘honorary.’ A determined well funded lobby could outflank the Royal Commission and load it with so much material that it runs out of time. They may have already.
conspiracy theory hysteria!
perlease… facts and figures, not emotive and inventive hypotheticals.
Lionel Elmore – Crikey’s answer to Dan Brown, same approach, same talent, different coloured religion
I am a little confused but after 12 years of drought, would not the so called fuel be reduced by nature. Grass and undergrowth needs water to grow. I know in my water starved garden, the lawn is brown but nearly non existent, most plants hardly surviving. My trees are losing a lot of their leaves. Weeding is not so much of a problem.
Lionel: Please understand there is no way on earth that I would wish to be unkind to you. Not at all. But, I would like to ask you how much you’ve had to do with governments, especially state governments? The first thing a guilty government does is to call a royal commission. Also, it is the last thing they have any intention of listening to. They don’t like unpleasant truths.
Already the Brumby is busy covering the Bracks government’s backside, and by the first sitting the commission will have been totally nobbled. The greatest lie constantly invoked by any government is the three word phrase ‘A royal commission’. And you sound as if you are a bit shocked. It is easy to judge how corrupt a government is by the speed with which the royal commission is called.
I was brought up listening to stories about the Great Depression and about bushfires. It was a grim learning curve.
I believe all our previous bush -fires have been questioned by a so-called royal commission. The Ash Wednesday fires had some sort of inquiry. Please tell me the revolutionary steps taken to avoid another bushfire. Bugger all? Exactly. People don’t want to hear the truth. Don’t you realize that? Not even to save their own lives.
Anyway, I enjoy reading your articles. If I was a betting person I would offer you odds of 1000-1 against the state government doing anything.
This is an article which poses many difficult questions. Points to ponder: The Dwellingup bushfire in WA in 1961 burnt over 1.1 million hectares and displaced 500 people despite the prescribed burning programme. All fires release dangerous chemical emissions which contaminate ecosystems. Natural fires emit polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, carbon monoxide carbon dioxide etc , destroying the carbon sinks of forests. The Victorian fires will have desecrated the biodiversity culminating in local extinctions.
When and if the Victorian drought breaks, shall we see that wet winters produce wet fuel, too damp to burn back in winter and too damp to burn back in spring?
Those homes and farms which have recently burnt down in Victoria will have released to air, soil and water, hazardous chemicals from pesticides, insecticides, synthetic compounds (such as plastics,) asbestos, paints, solvents, fuels, wood preservers etc. Those chemicals which are organic and persistent, such as endosulfan, have the potential to contaminate the entire food chain. Endosulfan is sprayed on fruit and vegetables in Australia but has been banned in more than 55 countries. Endosulfan is persistent and bioaccumulative. We shall pay the price for our economic management of this fragile environment.
With successive governments’ penchant for increasing the population in these arid lands, we will see more encroachment into forests from residential development – more loss of biodiversity – more pressure on our fragile life sustaining resources.
Today’ mass murderers are arsonists but tomorrow’s mass murderers? Our economic Liberals who abuse our environment for:
“All things are bound together – all things connect!”